MarGrid – using self-organizing maps to organize music

September 9, 2009

MarGrid is a visualization that uses Self-Organizing Maps to organize music collections into a two-dimensional grid based on music similarity. On the MarGrid website you can use find a flash-based interface that will let you explore a 1,000 song music collection.

The MarGrid interface is incorporated into AudioScapes, a framework for prototyping and exploring how touch-based and gestural controllers can be used with state-of-the-art content and context-aware visualizations. AudioScapes provides well-defined interfaces and conventions a variety of different audio collections, controllers and visualization methods so they can be easily combined to create innovative ways of interacting with large audio collections.

Here’s an AudioScape video that shows the MarGrid in an iPhone app that is designed to to help people with disabilities navigate through their personal collections. There are more videos worth watching on the AudioScapes site.

Creator:

MarGrid and AudioScapes is a project being built by researcher Steven Ness and George Tzanetakis at the University of Victoria It is built using the venerable Marsyas audio framework